INVENT-10N: LIFE IMITATES FICTION 1

GREAT MINDS AND ALL THAT …

When I was first developing the surveillance-heavy world of 2030 that Jenni-Fur, my lead protagonist in Invent-10n, would be living in I spent a while musing on the various youth tribes that might be populate the Britain of seventeen years hence. And one of them was the Slappers, made up of those who were resolutely anti-surveillance.  

SLAPPERS

In Invent-10n Slappers are a disaffected and generally pretty inarticulate bunch, vehemently against PanOptika (the all-embracing surveillance system of the 2030 British government), Tête-à-Tête (don’t ask) and an ordered society. In order to frustrate PanOptika’s facial-recognition ability they favour wide-brimmed hats (to cover the face), unfurled umbrellas (even when it isn’t raining), ankle-length deconstructed plastic raincoats, hoodies by Dead in the Water and (of course) wobblers, shoes with a-symmetric heels which change the way a person walks and thus thwart Gait-ID systems. The picture  above is how Nigel Robinson, the guy who did the design work on Invent-10n, pictured my Slappers (and remember he drew this back in 2009!).

 

Of course, I did this tongue-in cheek, never suspecting that the real world would catch up with my fictional whimsy so quickly. So when I was trawling the web looking for magazines which might review Invent-10n I was amazed when I stumbled over this:

Presented by Primitive at Tank Magazine these are a series of ‘Anti-Drone’ Stealth Wear outfits by Adam Harvey (produced in collaboration with NYC designer Johanna Bloomfield) intended to thwart surveillance cameras. My Slappers would have LOVED them. The interesting thing for me was that these designs build on previous work by Adam Harvey – he calls it CV Dazzle – which is face camouflage aimed at negating face recognition. Now that I never thought of!

I think if Invent-10n ever goes into a reprint I’ll ask Mr Harvey if I can feature his CV Dazzle. My Slappers wearing CV Dazzle warpaint would be terrific.

INVENT-10N NEWSRUSH

I’m putting together the material that will go on the Invent-10n website and one idea was to do a news feed for the events in the six months leading up to the opening scene in the book (Jenni-Fur beginning the typing of her journal). It turned out to be a lot more difficult (and a lot more depressing) than I’d envisaged.

DigmStore e-News

NewsRush

08 SEPTEMBER 2029 09:18: RAINFALL IN LONDON FOR AUGUST 2029 WAS AN ALL-TIME RECORD OF 103 MM

08 SEPTEMBER 2029 12:54: STATISTICS RELEASED BY NATIONAL PROTECTION AGENCY NAME SCARBOROUGH ‘CRIME CAPITAL OF BRITAIN’

08 SEPTEMBER 2029 16:27: CRUDE OIL TOPS $425 PER BARREL +++ PRICE OF GAS TO RISE 30% ‘WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT’

09 SEPTEMBER 2029 07:57: ANDREI LAZAREV HEAD OF RUSSIA’S MINISTERSTVO ENERGETIKI DENIES PRICE FIXING COLLUSION WITH OTHER OPEC STATES +++ RISE IN CRUDE PRICE ‘WHOLLY A CONSEQUENCE OF DESTRUCTION OF MIDDLE EAST OIL FIELDS IN ONE-DAY WAR’

09 SEPTEMBER 2029 15:47: PRIME MINISTER TELLS COMMONS ‘GEES RESPONSIBLE FOR ALMOST THREE-QUARTERS OF ALL RECORDED CRIME IN THE UK’

10 SEPTEMBER 2029 09:28: WILLIAM MORRISON HEAD OF NATIONAL PROTECTION AGENCY URGES ‘COMPULSORY USE OF TETE-A-TETE IMPLANTS AND REPATRIATION OF GEES’ AS SOLUTION TO THE SURGE IN UK CRIME

10 SEPTEMBER 2029 11:07: AA REPORTS THAT NUMBER OF CAR JOURNEYS AT A FIVE-YEAR LOW +++ ‘OUTRAGEOUS’ COST OF PETROL BLAMED

11 SEPTEMBER 2029 13:07: FOUR MEN ARRESTED FOR ‘GEE-BASHING RAMPAGE’ IN BLACKPOOL IN WHICH TWO GEE TEENAGERS KILLED

11 SEPTEMBER 2029 15:12: HENRY TOWNSEND LEADER OF REVISEDLABOUR PARTY CRITICISES PRIME MINISTER FOR HIS ‘CALLOUS, INHUMANE AND RACIST’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS GEES

11 SEPTEMBER 2029 15:36: PRIME MINISTER PETER ASHE BLAMES REVISEDLABOUR FOR PERMITTING ENTRY OF 5 MILLION REFUGEES FROM GREATER RUSSIA +++ ‘IT IS THE IRRESPONSIBLE AND IMBECILIC POLICIES OF THE PREVIOUS REVISEDLABOUR GOVERNMENT WHICH HAS CREATED THESE GEE-RIDDLED HAVENS OF CRIME AND VICIOUSNESS KNOWN AS THE GEEBURGS … AND IMPOVERISHED THE COUNTRY IN THE PROCESS’

12 SEPTEMBER 10:21: RED CROSS WARNS THAT 5 MILLION PENSIONERS AT RISK OF DYING THRU HYPOTHERMIA THIS WINTER AS A RESULT OF ‘OUT-OF-CONTROL’ ENERGY PRICES PREVENTING THEM HEATING THEIR HOMES

13 SEPTEMBER 2029 17:34: JENNI-FUR AND THE JOY POPPERS NAMED ‘NUBOP BAND OF THE YEAR’ IN OFF-BEAT E-MAGAZINE POLL +++ JENNI-FUR THANKS ‘CATS AND KITTENS WHO VOTED’

15 SEPTEMBER 2029 12:45: CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER SAMUEL TURNER ANNOUNCES THAT WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT STERLING WILL NO LONGER BE FREELY CONVERTIBLE *** SUCH ACTION ‘VITAL TO AVOID MELT-DOWN OF UK ECONOMY’

17 SEPTEMBER 2029 13:09: FOOD RIOTS IN BIRMINGHAM +++ FIFTY INJURED AND TWO REPORTED DEAD

17 SEPTEMBER 2029 18:03: NATIONAL PROTECTION AGENCY TO ASSUME CONTROL OF BRITISH GEEBURGS – SCARBOROUGH, BLACKPOOL, CLACTON, CLEETHORPES AND SOUTHEND – IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN ORDER AND ‘TO MINIMISE INTER-RACIAL AND INTER-RELIGIOUS CONFLICT’

18 SEPTEMBER 2029 09:27: BRITREAD OPINION POLL SHOWS 78% OF BRITISH VOTERS SUPPORT COMPULSORY REPATRIATION OF GEES BACK TO RUSSIA

20 SEPTEMBER 2029 18:37: SLAPPERS/UNITE CONDEMNS PLANS TO EXTEND USE OF TETE-A-TETE IMPLANT AS ‘UNDEMOCRATIC’

23 SEPTEMBER 2029 23:39: SLAPPERS/UNITE LEADER CARL RUTHERFORD ARRESTED ON CHARGES OF ‘FERMENTING UNREST’ AND ‘SEDITIOUS ACTIVITIES AGAINST UK GOVERNMENT’

27 SEPTEMBER 2029 12:12: ‘BLACKPOOL FOUR’ RELEASED WITHOUT CHARGE +++ GEE LEADERS EXPRESS OUTRAGE AT ‘MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE’

27 SEPTEMBER 2029 14:45: LEADER OF BRITISH NATIONALIST PARTY, EDMUND SMALL, ADVISES THOSE GEES WHO DON’T LIKE BRITISH JUSTICE TO ‘GO BACK WHERE THEY CAME FROM’

01 OCTOBER 2029 18:57: TRAFALGAR SQUARE DEMONSTRATION IN PROTEST AGAINST RELEASE OF ‘BLACKPOOL FOUR’ DECLARED ILLEGAL +++ THREE HUNDRED ARRESTS MADE

02 OCTOBER 2029 19:42: CHINESE AND RUSSIAN TROOPS ARE IN A STAND-OFF IN THE ARCTIC AS BOTH COUNTRIES JOSTLE FOR OWNERSHIP OF MINERAL RIGHTS

03 OCTOBER 2029 07:13: INDIAN PRIME MINISTER VIKRAM GUPTA DEFENDS USE OF BATTLEFIELD NUCLEAR WEAPONS AGAINST ‘TSUNAMI’ OF BANGLADESHI REFUGEES FLEEING FLOODS AS NECESSARY FOR ‘NATIONAL SURVIVAL’

07 OCTOBER 2029 12:56: HOME OFFICE REPORTS USE OF CLASS A DRUG ‘PING’ HAS REACHED AN ALL-TIME HIGH

08 OCTOBER 2029 09:15: RAINFALL IN LONDON FOR SEPTEMBER 2029 WAS AN ALL-TIME RECORD OF 105 MM

09 OCTOBER 2029 09:08: CHERY HOLDINGS COMPLETES THE TAKEOVER OF GENERAL MOTORS THE LAST REMAINING INDEPENDENT US VOLUME CAR MANUFACTURER

11 OCTOBER 2029 10:37: THE MET OFFICE ANNOUNCES THAT THE RECENT FLASH FLOODS WHICH INUNDATED MUCH OF EAST ANGLIA WERE CAUSED BY A COMBINATION OF RISING SEA LEVELS AND CHANGES TO RAINFALL PATTERNS +++ SHADOW ENVIRONMENT SPOKESPERSON DEBORAH ARNOLD COMMENTED ‘NO KIDDING’

13 OCTOBER 2029 15:24: PROPOSAL BROUGHT BEFORE PARLIAMENT TO BAN THE USE OF OPAQUE UMBRELLAS ON THE GROUNDS THAT THEY ‘DISRUPT THE EFFECTIVE USE OF FACIAL RECOGNITION SURVEILLANCE EQUIPMENT’

15 OCTOBER 2029 09:18: ‘TAKE THAT’ ANNOUNCE PLANS TO REFORM FOR ANOTHER FAREWELL TOUR

17 OCTOBER 2029 14:10: HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH SEVERLY CRITICISES THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT FOR ITS TREATMENT OF REFUGEES FROM GREATER RUSSIA

19 OCTOBER 2029 20:34: PRIME MINISTER ASHE REJECTS CRITICISMS BY HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH ACCUSING THEM OF BEING ‘NAMBY-PAMBY DO-GOODERS ADRIFT IN SOME FANTASY LIBERAL UTOPIA AND HENCE UNABLE TO APPRECIATE THE CHALLENGES OF THE REAL WORLD BEING FACED BY GOVERNMENTS’

25 OCTOBER 2029 15:07: PRIME MINISTER ASHE ANNOUNCES PLANS TO HOLD A REFERENDUM ON 24^TH JUNE 2030 ON THE ADOPTION OF THE PATRIOT PROJECT WHICH WILL OBLIGE ALL UK RESIDENTS TO WEAR A TETE-A-TETE IMPLANT AND FOR ALL REFUGEES WHO ENTERED BRITAIN UNDER THE UNITED NATIONS EVACUATION PROGRAM TO RETURN TO THEIR COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

26 OCTOBER 2029 09:23: PATRIOT PROJECT CONDEMNED BY HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH AS ‘FASCIST IN INTENT’

26 OCTOBER 2029 10:54: PATRIOT PROJECT CONDEMNED BY UNITED NATIONS AS ‘UNFORTUNATE’

26 OCTOBER 2029 11:16: PATRIOT PROJECT CONDEMNED BY HENRY TOWNSEND LEADER OF REVISEDLABOUR PARTY AS ‘UNDEMOCRATIC AND UNBRITISH’

26 OCTOBER 2029 12:16: BRITREAD OPINION POLL CONDUCTED ON BEHALF OF THE E-MAIL SHOWS 86% OF BRITISH VOTERS SUPPORT THE PATRIOT PROJECT

27 OCTOBER 2029 18:57: RUSSIA SUSPENDS OIL EXPORTS TO CHINA IN RETALIATION FOR ITS ‘FLAGRANT, ILLEGAL AND BELLIGERANT’ OCCUPATION OF RUSSIAN-CLAIMED ARCTIC

28 OCTOBER 2029 23:19: HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH HAS BEEN CLASSIFIED AS A TERRORIST ORGANISATION BY UK GOVERNMENT AND ITS LONDON OFFICE CLOSED

29 OCTOBER 2029 08:27: ANNUAL REPORT OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CONSORTIUM STATES THAT THE 10 CM RISE IN SEA LEVELS AND THE 1.5⁰C RISE IN GLOBAL TEMPERATES OVER THE THIRTY YEAR PERIOD TO 2028 IS ‘A BLIP’

29 OCTOBER 2029 05:34: 101^ST ACADEMY AWARDS HELD IN BEIJING SAW SIR BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH WINS BEST ACTOR OSCAR FOR HIS ROLE IN CHARLIE FARADAY’S ROMANTIC COMEDY ‘SUICIDE IS A BLAST’

01 NOVEMBER 2029 20:43: TWITTER ANNOUNCES THAT SIR STEPHEN FRY IS THE FIRST CELEBRITY TO BOAST ONE BILLION FOLLOWERS

03 NOVEMBER 2029 11:25: HOME SECRETARY FRANCES PACKHARD REJECTS OPPOSITION AMENDMENT TO ‘SUS LAW’ CLAIMING THAT ‘STOP AND SHOT’ IS VITAL FOR THE EFFECTIVE POLICING OF BRITAIN

08 NOVEMBER 2029 09:11: RAINFALL IN LONDON FOR OCTOBER 2029 WAS AN ALL-TIME RECORD OF 125 MM

13 NOVEMBER 2029 19:18: INSURANCE CLAIMS RELATING TO THE APOPHIS ASTEROID NEAR-MISS IN APRIL 2029 TOPS TEN BILLION DOLLARS

14 NOVEMBER 2029 05:41: GLOBAL CLIMATE CONSORTIUM IS FORCED TO VACATE ITS NEW YORK OFFICES DUE TO FLOODING

17  NOVEMBER 2029 14:53: AT A PRESS CONFERENCE TODAY THE ALL-ENGLAND CLUB ANNOUNCED IT WILL ROOF IN ALL ITS COURTS BEFORE THE 2030 WIMBLEDON CHAMPIONSHIP AND SWITCH TO CLAY +++ THE LEVEL OF RAINFALL IN THE UK IS CITED AS THE REASON BEHIND THIS MOVE

23 NOVEMBER 2029 19:42: RUSSIAN PRESIDENT PETR SHOVIN CONFIRMS THAT ALL RETURNING GEES MUST CONVERT TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY +++ ‘WHILST RUSSIA REMAINS A LIBERAL, DEMOCRATIC AND TOLERANT COUNTRY IT CANNOT PERMIT THOSE HOLDING SUCH PERNICIOUS AND DELIQUENT BELIEFS TO RESIDE IN OUR COUNTRY. THIS WOULD VIOLATE THE CODE OF ONE NATION, ONE BLOOD AND ONE GOD WHICH GUIDES THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT’

08 DECEMBER 2029 09:19: RAINFALL IN LONDON FOR NOVEMBER 2029 WAS AN ALL-TIME RECORD OF 111 MM

11 DECEMBER 2029 20:45: RUSSIAN PRESIDENT PETR SHOVIN CONFIRMS THAT ALL JEWISH AND MUSLIM GEES RETURNING TO GREATER RUSSIA AS A RESULT OF THE UK ADOPTING THE PATRIOT PROJECT WILL INITIALLY BE HELD IN ‘RE-EDUCATION CENTRES’

14 DECEMBER 2029 08:14: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL DESCRIBES THE LEVEL OF SUICIDES IN THE GEEBURGS – RUNNING AT FIVE-TIMES THE NATIONAL AVERAGE – AS A SCANDAL

17 DECEMBER 2029 11:00: BRITAIN HOLDS A THREE-MINUTE SILENCE TO COMMEMORATE THE TWO-HUNDRED THOUSAND WHO DIED IN THE DIRTY-BOMB ATTACK ON LIVERPOOL IN 2021

20 DECEMBER 2029 19:02: UK’S JESUS FACTION IN ITS XMAS MESSAGE DEMANDS THAT ALL RUSSIAN REFUGEES BE DEPORTED AND THAT THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT PURSUE A POLICY OF ‘SALVATION THROUGH RACIAL PURITY’

24 DECEMBER 2029 10:14: ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY ANNOUNCES THAT THOSE WHO PROTEST THE USE OF THE PANOPTIKA SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM ARE ‘MISGUIDED’ +++ ‘THE DESIRE FOR PRIVACY IS A SIN’

01 JANUARY 2030 13:18: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL HAS BEEN CLASSIFIED AS A TERRORIST ORGANISATION BY UK GOVERNMENT AND ITS LONDON OFFICE CLOSED

05 JANUARY 2030 08:09: ON THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ONE-DAY WAR WHICH DESTROYED MOST OF THE MIDDLE EAST IN A NUCLEAR CONFLAGRATION UN SECRETARY GENERAL MOSES OWOLOWO URGES WORLD LEADERS ‘TO LEARN THE LESSONS SO DEARLY BOUGHT AND TO TURN AWAY FROM WAR AS A MEANS OF SETTLING INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES’

06 JANUARY 2030 18:52: CHINA AMASSES TEN DIVISIONS ON THE SINO-RUSSIAN BORDER IN RETALIATION FOR SUSPENSION OF OIL DELIVERIES FROM RUSSIA

08 JANUARY 2030 09:15: RAINFALL IN LONDON FOR DECEMBER 2029 WAS AN ALL-TIME RECORD OF 101 MM

09 JANUARY 2030 08:21: MET OFFICE ANNOUNCES THAT 2029 WAS THE UK’S WETTEST YEAR ON RECORD

09 JANUARY 2030 07:12: US PRESIDENT KIM SAUNDERS OFFERS TO MEDIATE IN SINO-RUSSIAN ARCTIC DISPUTE

10 JANUARY 2030 03:53: US ARBITRATION OFFER REJECTED AS RUSSIA AND CHINA AGREE THAT ‘MINOR NATIONS’ SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED IN THE DISCUSSION PROCESS

12 JANUARY 2030 05:47: UN SECRETARY GENERAL MOSES OWOLOWO AGREES TO CHAIR CONERENCE TO SETTLE SINO-RUSSIAN ARCTIC DISPUTE

18 JANUARY 2030 04:17: UK’S BID TO HOST THE 2038 WORLD CUP HAS BEEN REJECTED BECAUSE OF CONCERNS REGARDING ‘POLITICAL AND SOCIAL INSTABILITY’

24 JANUARY 2030 07:21: IN GENEVA RUSSIAN AND CHINESE NEGOTIATORS AGREE THE AREAS OF THE ARCTIC WHICH WILL FALL UNDER THEIR ‘ZONE OF INFLUENCE’ +++ PROTESTS BY THE US, NORWAY AND CANADA ARE DISMISSED AS ‘INCONSEQUENTIAL’

28 JANUARY 2030 10:47: WILLIAM MORRISON HEAD OF NATIONAL PROTECTION AGENCY ANNOUNCES UPGRADING OF GCHQ’S QUANPUTERS PLATFORMING PANOPTIKA SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM

01 FEBRUARY 2030 19:56: WWF ANNOUNCES THAT ‘POLAR BEAR EXTINCT IN THE WILD’

02 FEBRUARY 2030 05:13: UN SECRETARY GENERAL MOSES OWOLOWO ANNOUNCES THAT THE MALDIVES HAVE OFFICIALLY ‘CEASED TO EXIST’

04 FEBRUARY 2030 10:53: GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL CRITCISES GOVERNMENT FOR IGNORING UPSURGE IN CHILDREN PRESENTING WITH RICKETS +++ GMC DEMANDS RETURN OF FREE SCHOOL MILK AND VITAMIN SUPPLEMENTS

08 FEBRUARY 2030 09:12: RAINFALL IN LONDON FOR JANUARY 2030 WAS AN ALL-TIME RECORD OF 105 MM

08 FEBRUARY 2030 13:53: BAQTRAQ CYBERSYSTEMS UNVEILS THE ‘NEW IMPROVED’ VERSION OF ITS BEST-SELLING ‘EYEFLY’ NANODRONE.

09 FEBRUARY 2030 10:20: JENNI-FUR SITS DOWN TO WRITE HER JOURNAL TIPPY-TIP-TYPED MOST LABOURIOUSLY ON AN UNDERWOOD CHAMPION CIRCA PRE-GAS THIS TO ENSURE HER THOUGHTS ARE NOT ANALYSED IN THE MOST INTIMATE OF FASHION BY THOSE NATIONAL PROTECTION AGENCY SCUMBOIDS …

INVENT-10N: THE START

INVENT-10N: IN THE BEGINNING

Invent-10n is my latest book (I call it a semi-graphic novella, that’s a novel of 60,000 words augmented with illustrations) which is due to be published by Alchemy Press in November. It’s a dystopian story, following the travails of my heroine – twenty-year old nuBop singer and angry young lady, Jenni-Fur – as she struggles against the suffocating strictures of the surveillance society that is Britain 2030.

Invent-10n began life a long time ago – in 2009 to be exact – when I was playing around with the idea of writing a story about a world where the full implications of living in a pan-surveillance society were being played out. To do this I wanted to create a feeling in the mind of the reader that they were actually in that world so I came up with the idea of combining faux-factual material supposedly published in the e-media of 2030 (the year the story is set) this interlaced with the extracts from the diaries of the two chief protagonists, jive-talking, nuBop rebel, Jenni-Fur, and National Protection Agency apparatchik, Sebastian Davenport. Jenni-Fur is the angry young thing determined to screw-over the PanOptika Surveillance system run by the National Protection Agency … the MI5 of the UK of 2030. To do this she teams up with mysterious übergeek, Ivan Nitko, inventor of the eponymous Invent-10n.

Given that there would be significant design element in the book I collaborated with a friend of mine, Nigel Robinson, who did the artwork for my Demi-Monde series. And realising that the format would be unusual we went to the trouble of mocking-up what it would look like and having twenty-five copies printed. Even so the response from mainstream publishers was unenthusiastic.

That was when I got distracted writing the four instalments of the Demi-Monde series and Invent-10n lay on a dongle gathering dust. Then in March this year a friend of mine – Peter Coleborn – who I knew from the Renegade Writers’ group in Stoke sent me an e-mail asking if I had anything, novella-sized, I might consider publishing through his imprint, Alchemy Press. I remembered Invent-10n and sent one of the mock-ups to Peter. Peter liked it (what a sensible lad!).

Now I was faced with finishing the bloody thing … and up-dating it. In this day and age four years is a technological eternity and reality had already caught up with some of the ideas I’d dreamed up back in 2009. The most alarming was that in the original Invent-10n my characters used a thing called a Polly (a Poly-Functional Digital Device) to e-interact with each other and Nigel had designed a Polly (in 2009) to look like this:

 

Seem familiar? One year later Apple came up with their iPad! Bollocks!

For this and other reasons I had to rework/remodel Invent-10n which took longer than I supposed – two months in fact – and then I had to hand it over to Nigel to work his design magic. The interesting thing was while Nigel beavered away the world became increasingly aware/interested in surveillance and its implications for society. The Edward Snowden brouha and the realisation (pause for gasps of surprise) the NSA was actually e-monitoring everybody and his brother via its PRISM system made me more determined to finish Invent-10n while the subject was hot. When I had written it in 2009 I had been writing a fantasy, now it was more a piece of social commentary.

So, what with the design requirements of the book and Peter’s various editing suggestions Invent-10n wasn’t finally finished until early September. Then I had to write the blurb which would go on the back of the book and wanting something suitably Jenni-Fur-esque I came up with this (presented à la Jenni-fur on a typewriter, which she uses to avoid the e-wigging of the National Protection Agency):

Greetings Gate, let’s Agitate.

Look over your shoulder. Do you see the camera? Then dig that even as you read these words of sedition and denial you are being watched by the ever e-quisitive National Protection Agency. The National Protection Agency – omnipresent, omniscient and most ominous – which runs PanOptika, the spider at the centre of the Web.

PanOptika. What’s the slogan: watching out for the good guys

by watching out for the bad guys. But what did that Roman word-slinger, Juvenal say? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes: who watches

the watchers?

So dig this to the extremity, cats and kittens: if we do nothing soon we must kneel, digitally-dutiful, before National Protection, and then there will be no chance to zig when the ChumBots say zag, or to beep when they say bop. Realise thou that PanOptika triumphant means we will not be able to think, to act, to speak or to move without the spirit-sapping realisation that the badniks know everything … everything.

We are circling the drain.

This is my warning.

And now it’s all wrapped up it’s just a question of selecting a launch date (sometime in November is the banker).